(Trying to) lift up Jesus in Spain

Note from Bruce Barron, editor of this column: In the last few weeks, Spain has experienced several major events of religious significance: visits by Pope Leo XIV and Franklin Graham, a large Pentecostal assembly, and a concert by Bad Bunny (who values his Catholic upbringing, though he has distanced himself from the church). 

To make sense of all this, I’m honored to publish a guest post from Tim Westergren, Spain Field Director for the Christian and Missionary Alliance and a first-rate theological commentator. I’ve known Westergren and his wife, Marilyn, since 2011, when they welcomed my son Kyle to their hometown of Tres Cantos, north of Madrid, for his junior year of high school.

Pope Leo XIV participated this Wednesday in the inauguration of the Jesus Christ Tower, the tallest and central finial of the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, architect Antoni Gaudí’s famous masterpiece in Barcelona and by far the most visited monument in Spain.

The Pope has drawn huge crowds since he arrived in Madrid on June 6, with over a million people flooding the streets to hear him.

The 53% of Spaniards who consider themselves Roman Catholic (though only about 17% actively practice their faith) have prepared for this visit enthusiastically in record time since the Vatican announced it in January.

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During the previous weekend, thousands gathered in Madrid for two other starkly contrasting events.

Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican pop phenom who performed at halftime of this year’s Super Bowl, filled a soccer stadium with 60,000 fans for two consecutive nights.

The Festival of Hope, with contemporary Christian worship led by Michael W. Smith and preaching by Franklin Graham, drew a much more modest 10,000 to 12,000 on the same two nights.

Originally intended to be a high-profile evangelical event when plans began four years ago, the Festival of Hope got lost in the splash of other more popular protagonists.

[destacate]Originally intended to be a high profile evangelical event when plans began four years ago, the Festival of Hope got lost in the splash of other more popular protagonists[/destacate]Among Spaniards, Pope Leo’s popularity is rising and Franklin Graham’s is definitely declining. On one hand, the pope’s clarion call to multilateral peacemaking in international affairs and his criticism of “holy war” methods of subduing enemies sit well with my friends across the political spectrum.

In contrast, the photos of evangelical leaders (or “evangelists,” as some Spanish media insist on calling all of us) laying hands on President Trump in the Oval Office, along with Graham’s disingenuous dismissal of the Trump-posted AI image of himself as Jesus the healer on social media, have provoked some to pigeonhole Graham as a fundamentalist sycophant instead of a prophetic voice for moral repentance.

Another event last month has also shaped the public perception of evangelical Christians while causing some consternation in both the Spanish evangelical council and the Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid.

Portuguese Pentecostal pastor Antonio Rodrigues Pereira, with big money from Brazil, wanted to repeat in Madrid the historic feat of gathering 44,000 Christians in the Benfica stadium in Lisbon in 2023.

[destacate]The large attendance made The Change Madrid an historic event, but the conflation of neo-Pentecostal hallmarks with classic evangelicalism and the branding of evangelical religion in Spain as a Latin American import frustrated some evangelical leaders[/destacate]On May 2, The Change Madrid brought 40,000 believers to the same Atlético stadium where Bad Bunny would perform four weeks later, featuring well-known Christian singers and the testimony of a former Barcelona football player, Dani Alves, who found Christ in prison before his sentence for sexual assault was overturned in 2025.

The large attendance made this an historic event, but the conflation of neo-Pentecostal hallmarks (such as “name it—claim it,” the prosperity gospel, and seeking signs and wonders on stage) with classic evangelicalism and the branding of evangelical religion in Spain as a Latin American import frustrated some evangelical leaders.

Furthermore, the Archbishop of Madrid, Rev. José Cobo Cano, was reportedly disturbed by the sectarian show of force that questioned the validity of the Roman Catholic tradition in Spain.

As a result, movements such as Alpha and Christian businessmen´s associations, which have active collaboration between Protestants and Catholics, have come under scrutiny by the Archbishop.

Rev. José Pablo Sánchez, longtime director of the Buenas Noticias TV evangelical television program on state television and president emeritus of Decision (the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s partner organization in Spain), decried the damage done by groups within evangelicalism who dare to speak as if they were the whole movement.

He also expressed frustration at the double standard applied by the media in Spain in confusing parts of evangelicalism with the whole, as well as their frequent facile attributions of sinister motives.

The most unfortunate consequence of all this is that the general public perception of evangelical Christianity in Spain has become conditioned by powerful personalities who have undermined the favorable reputation local churches have earned over decades of effective work in drug rehabilitation, food distribution, community development, and social services.

[destacate]The most unfortunate consequence of all this is that the general public perception of evangelical Christianity in Spain has become conditioned by powerful personalities who have undermined the favorable reputation local churches have earned over decades of effective work[/destacate]The media’s characterization of Franklin Graham as a Trumpian fetish preacher does little to help the cause of Christ. No attention is given to Graham’s humanitarian work through Samaritan´s Purse.

I have frequent conversations with an engineering professor at the State University of Madrid, whom I met through a woman in our local church. He has been on the warpath lately with me, profoundly disturbed by American evangelicals’ apparent love for Donald Trump.

He has a hard time parsing Protestants, as most Spaniards do, and feels strongly that our faith leads inexorably to authoritarianism, just as Roman Catholicism did under Franco for forty years. He suspects that my own seemingly compassionate pietism conceals the same ugly potential.

My friend came to a concert at a nearby Catholic church on a recent Sunday night. A choir composed mostly of atheists (with at least two Christian believers including me) sang sacred music from Mozart and Andrea Bocelli’s “The Prayer.”

As I performed, I recalled that despite the unfortunate public perceptions I cannot control, I can still humbly lift up Jesus and let his Spirit do the work of convincing my university friend and my fellow tenors in the choir.

Gaudí made Jesus Christ the highest tower of his beautiful vision for God, which is now visited by five million tourists each year. I can do no less with my life, which is observed by a somewhat smaller number of Spaniards. The rest is up to God.

Bruce Barron, author or coauthor of seven books on religion and politics and a former US congressional aide, was editor of the World Evangelical Alliance’s theology journal from 2018 to 2024. Subscribe to his blog at brucebarron.substack.com.

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